1. I

He could hear the footsteps along the cobbles. They were deafening. Louder and louder. Closer and closer. He had opened his front door trying to sense the direction of the noise. A figure came towards him-package in hand- and before he knew it the man had entered his house. A large thud followed as he slammed the door behind him. They looked each other up and down. The light was dim and he could only make out an outline of the man who had entered his home. He was tall and well built, and could well have been a bouncer, but there was something strange about him. The right side of his body seemed unattached to the left and as he groaned, in pain it seemed, he began to stagger towards the boy whose mouth was dropped in fear.

“Tkit,” the man muttered. The boy just stared.

The man gasped for air, “Take it,” he cried in pain. The boy looked at the package and then back at the man. He reached forward and took it. It was light; almost weightless. The boy was mesmerised by it but as he stared in awe, the man’s legs gave way and he dropped in a heap to the floor. The boy bent down to hear his last words,

“Don’t open it,” he whispered. A tear rolled down his cheek then his eyes went blank and his head rolled back.

He was unsure of what to do. He was just a boy. He had taken the package to the living room and placed in on the glass table in front of him as he sat; perplexed. He thought of what he had just witnessed. A man had died in front of his eyes and now the package lay in front of him. It was calling to him. Asking him to open it. Telling him. But no! The man had told him not to and even as he reached forward, grasping the package, unwrapping the brown paper he knew it was a mistake.

The light was brighter than anything he had even seen. He shielded his eyes. Everything in the room emulated the blue sun in its centre. A screeching laugh seemed to come from the ball as it grew in size. Tears streamed down the boys face as he desperately tried to find the brown paper. He threw it at the light, trying to package it up once more, but it was too late. There was no longer a room-just the blue light. It surrounded him. Intoxicated him. He could feel its wrath around his neck. In his skull. In his brain. Its grip tightened and he fell to the floor. The blue turned to black.